


Twelve Days of Christmas

by PlotQueen



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-22
Updated: 2008-12-22
Packaged: 2019-01-15 19:11:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 18,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12327078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlotQueen/pseuds/PlotQueen
Summary: Danny has finally resolved to tell Sam how he feels just in time for the holidays. But who can blame him for taking it slow? Especially when he's doing it in style.





	1. Chapter 1

**Wednesday, December 13 th** **(Twelve days until Christmas)**

 

Wednesdays were always the crappiest day of the week. Mondays were well acknowledged as the suckiest, the worst possible, the utterly darkest day of the week. Tuesday had little notoriety, and Thursday was the day that dragged, but Wednesday was all of them combined. Halfway through the week, and still half of it to go; a completely interminable cesspool of hell when you were stuck in class at Casper High. There had been a high point, though, Sam thought with a guilty smirk.

Danny’d gotten roped into kicking Youngblood’s ass again, and it had robbed him of half his hazmat before he was done. Definitely a high point.

But that had been first period, and there was still the entire day to go. Sam sighed as she tried to snuggle her face into her backpack. It was new, though still a spider, soft and furry and actually a pretty good pillow. (Her old one bit the dust rather spectacularly during the summer, having made it through the entirety of her freshman, sophomore _and_ junior years. She figured that it was fitting to start out her senior year with something new, and yet old.) Sleep was short coming right now, between helping Danny with ghosts, even if he said he didn’t need the help, and forcing him to study for finals with her.

It was too cold yet to get a proper nap, even with the layers she was wearing. Tights under her jeans, and long socks doubled up before her boots. An undershirt, a regular shirt, a sweater, and then her jacket. She even had arm warmers on with her hands pulled up inside them as she hid her face from the chilly air. She cursed the school’s furnace as it continually failed to start itself leaving her, and every other student in Casper High, freezing.

It was second nature to tune out the announcements that came over the loudspeaker, and no one ever paid attention to the crap that the media crew tried calling a morning show. Well, sometimes people did, but only (much to her disgust) when it was homecoming or prom season. The sheep certainly had to keep up with who was most popular. Sam didn’t really care, she was happy being unpopular. It was easier living up to her own expectations that to try and meet everyone else’s.

The same mindless drivel that she heard every day was background noise as Sam tried to burrow further into her backpack, the silky faux fur it was made out of tickled her nose as she breathed until she finally lifted her head to slide her arms under with the intention of using them as a pillow. (The plus side was that with her face down, every time she breathed out would send warm air on her very cold hands making the knit warmers actually do their job.)

Well, she intended to, until a man carrying an elegant white box let himself into the classroom, snow melting on his hat, his jacket, and across his boots. His pants were damp to halfway up to his knees, and he had a visitor’s sticker peeling off of the left sleeve of his jacket. Sam watched curiously as he was stopped by Mrs. Adams. The whispered exchange was drowned out by something about candy canes on sale, some exchange deal that Sam had no intention of participating in, and Sam tilted her head to the side, her lower lip between her teeth as she chewed absently on it.

It surprised Sam when Mrs. Adams shooed the man towards the students, and even more so when Sam realized that the man was headed for her desk, where she was still comfortable sprawled forward, and her backpack was almost warming her neck where the fur was currently tickling at as she watched.

“Samantha Manson?” he asked.

“Sam,” she corrected, but nodded blankly as she pulled the backpack into her lap and then let it slide down to the floor when he moved to settle the box in front of her.

He held out a sheaf of paper that was tucked into a clipboard and she signed her name. He wished her a cheery holiday greeting as she stared at the package in front of her, gone from the classroom before she finally looked up, one dark brow arched in… Well, disbelief was a good one to choose. She certainly couldn’t believe someone had had something delivered to her. Worry was another, because even if she didn’t hear ticking, that didn’t mean that it wasn’t going to be a problem. Skulker had hundreds of devices that wreaked havoc and none of them ticked.

It certainly didn’t help that every single student in the classroom, and Mrs. Adams included, had their eyes glued to her and the box, waiting for her to open it. That certainly explained the flushed heat along her cheeks. Not that Sam ever minded being the center of attention, but usually when she was it was for a better cause than getting some random gift.

“Come on, open it!”

Sam nearly hissed at the too perky voice. Even if Star hadn’t been part of the ‘A-list’ and a cheerleader, Sam would never have become friends with her. The blond girl was just too cheerful for her own good. Especially at Christmas.

Sam just silently complied with the wishes of everyone but herself, not for the first time wishing that she’d been blessed with a last name that would have put her in Danny and Tucker’s homeroom. But no, she had to be born a Manson, and the money was nice but being stuck in the same homeroom as Star didn’t really make her feel any better.

The box was simple, tasteful. Plain white with a faint cream embossing across its surface, and a pretty gilded bow on top. The bow was tugged off and dropped onto the spider backpack to save it for her scrapbook, then the lid carefully and slowly lifted. There was still no ticking, nor was there the telltale glow of ectoplasm or ectoenergy. But there was the gentle scent of evergreen and rose and the more elusive perfume of lilies.

The rest of the class forgotten, Sam stood, her chair pushed back haphazardly so that she could see inside the box. Flowers. Lots of them. Her jaw dropped.

As she lifted them out, the clear vase cool in her hands, Sam recognized easily each component. The roses were easy enough, even if she weren’t so horticulturally minded, the red of their petals a deep velvety color. Tucked in with them were plum colored calla lilies that made Sam smile, surprised. It was seasonal with juniper sprigs and a few expertly trimmed boxwood twigs arranged within, and finished off with red hypericum, the berries reminiscent of mistletoe, but without the stigma.

Even if she had been able to talk Sam wouldn’t have been able to answer the pointed questions demanding who sent the gorgeous arrangement to her. Sam had no idea, even as she carefully ran her fingers along the delicate petals of one of the lilies, and then stroked a rose. Though she’d deny it later on (because anyone who knew Star knew that anything the girl saw would be shared with the entire school before the bell rang twice more) she smiled, entranced.

And that was when she saw it, a single square note card, tucked in between a bit of the juniper and hidden behind a calla lily. Sam reached for it, and plucked it out turning it over, and over again. It was blank, nothing written on it save for the picture on the front of a partridge tucked into the boughs of a pear tree, the fruit ripe a golden-green against the plain white paper.

The whispers around her did nothing to help as Sam wondered who had sent the flowers, and god, she wished she was lucky enough to share Danny and Tucker’s homeroom. At least they’d help her out instead of tossing wolf whistles her way and crude innuendo about secret admirers.


	2. Chapter 2

**Thursday, December 14 th (Eleven days until Christmas)**

 

The flowers were a bother. Not that they were lovely or unappreciated, though part of Sam deplored the waste of their lives. But she had _no_ idea who sent them. She investigated, of course, but by the next afternoon still had no answers. Even Danny and Tucker had been no help, despite their own special abilities. Tucker had promised her that he couldn’t find any trace of an actual payment using electronic means, which meant that the flowers had been bought and paid for in person with cash, and Danny had remained surprisingly silent. In fact, he’d barely spoken to her since she’s shown them the flowers.

The problem was far more intriguing than the trig equation she was supposed to be working on.

Sam had half thought that Danny might have sent the flowers, but now she wasn’t so sure. If he had, then surely he would have given something away. Danny Fenton wasn’t one to lie well; he was caught more often than not, and the only time he managed a successful lie was when he was too tired or beat up to be bothered to turn red at the untruth.

Danny hadn’t so much as flinched, just turned his face to a stony glare that made the lower classmen avoid him in the halls.

And Tucker had the nerve to laugh and tease. _Smug bastard,_ Sam thought without rancor. Tucker always liked to tease her, especially when it came to Danny and her lack of a significant other. Or of any other, really since Sam had decided that vetoing the dating scene was safer after the Gregor/Elliot incident. Now if Danny asked… But she was far from convinced that he was harboring ‘secret longings’ for her like Tucker constantly suggested.

“Five minutes, class.”

Sam glanced up at the teacher and then back down at her paper. “I hate sines and cosines,” she muttered, as she glanced at the half-finished pop quiz. It was only ten questions long, but she really wasn’t prepared to deal with a pop quiz a week before finals.

She guessed at two of the equations as she thought about the flowers on her nightstand. Who could have sent them to her? Her first instinct was someone she knew, except that the people she knew who might send her flowers were Tucker and Danny. Neither one of them was a prime candidate at this point, much to her dismay, which meant that it was either someone her parents wanted her to see, or she really and truly did have a secret admirer.

The thought wasn’t as unpleasant as she’d believed it might be, but it hurt more than Sam wanted to admit. There was a part of her that desperately wanted it to be Danny, but the more rational part knew that the odds weren’t with her. She’d known him for far too long to believe he magically fell in love with her and decided to woo her with pretty flowers like any other girl.

To be fair, Danny didn’t romance any girls at all. Not that there weren’t many who wouldn’t mind. Even before the ghost fighting he’d been attractive. Very cute, sweet, and funny once a girl got past the nerd label. But the ghost fighting had definitely changed that. Almost four years later and Danny was riding the mysterious bad boy vibe. Tall, dark and handsome. Sam almost laughed at herself as she thought that.

She wondered if he would ever realize how attractive he really was. Even without the aura that made most of the female population in Casper High swoon, he was still so handsome that sometimes Sam had to think to breathe when she looked at him. And his eyes. Oh, his eyes; those piercing blue eyes that she loved.

The snapping of her pencil lead as she ground it into the quiz sheet brought Sam back to the classroom and the hell of an unfinished quiz, a broken pencil, and the timer going off. Oh, this was a fail.

She had to bite her tongue on the urge to crumple the quiz and stuff it into her backpack. She wouldn’t be allowed to retake it if Mr. Blake thought it was lost—policy would force her to eat a zero into her average—but the idea was fairly attractive when she contemplated how badly the quiz was going to reflect on her scholastic aptitude. She let the paper go with all the rest, resigned to the crappy grade and the mystery of the flowers. And even worse? The quizzes were being graded _now_. There was nothing that could make her soon-to-be humiliation better.

Then the classroom door opened and a blue clad, snow decorated courier strolled in, a visitor sticker on his jacket.

If it was possible to hide behind her desk, Sam would have, because she had a very strange sense of foreboding building in her stomach as the man walked over to Mr. Blake and exchanged a very quiet series of sentences. She could feel her classmates’ eyes on her, her face warming as she blushed. No doubt every single one of them knew about the flowers from yesterday morning. Damn Star and her big mouth. It wasn’t like Sam hadn’t hidden them in her locker all day, and no one had asked. Of course, that could be easily attributed to Danny’s patented Glare ‘O Doom that he’d wandered around with, and she had been in his company most of the day.

“Fuck,” she muttered quietly as the man headed unerringly for her, Mr. Blake’s paternal smile an annoying contrast to the cheery one on the courier’s snow-rosy face.

The box that was placed on her desk was small, black and nondescript. There were no markings, just a small white envelope taped to the bottom, and Sam’s fingers trembled as she reached out to pick it up. The lid came off easily, and black velvet greeted her. It was a simple task to upend the box and let the velvet box slide out into her palm, but it was much harder to steel her nerves to open it.

Too small to be a bomb, whether manmade or ghostly creation. Somehow, Sam almost wished it were rather than another gift from a faceless admirer. But she opened it anyway.

It was startling to look at. Silver, white and blue, and the delicate way the gems were set. Balanced, well cut; Sam didn’t wear much jewelry, but what she did was tasteful, elegant, and extremely well made, which made it expensive. This, was all of them, from the diamond stud to the sapphire drop suspended by two lengths of white gold, one straight and the other an elegant S. Beautiful in its simplicity, and she nearly dropped the velvet box in her haste to tear the envelope from the other box, hoping for a hint, a clue, anything that would tell her who the gift-giver was.

The slip of paper inside was thin, almost see through, and heavy black ink was embossed on the top in the shape of two birds huddled together. Turtledoves, Sam realized, one with its head protectively over the others back. For the first time since she received the flowers and the mystery they gave her, Sam smiled. She had the feeling that if she waited till tomorrow, she’d be getting another piece of the puzzle.


	3. Chapter 3

**Friday, December 15 th (Ten days until Christmas)**

 

Anticipation wasn’t something Sam had much experience with. Longing, pining, even lusting, were far more familiar. But the air of this Friday was unusually charged for her, the sense of eagerness making her morning less of a bother than it normally would be. She’d breezed through her first two classes, sleepy for the half hour that was homeroom, and was looking forward to (much to her disbelief) whatever vegan type meal the cafeteria was offering.

Tucker was ahead of her, his plate piled high with meatloaf and ham both. She shuddered at the thought, noticing that once again he’d skipped past anything that wasn’t made of protein as she reached for one of the prepackaged salads (a triumph she’d managed during sophomore year) and the accompanying bowl of cubed tofu. It was questionable at best, but Sam was sure that if she didn’t eat it no one would care.

Danny was behind her, just as quiet and distant as he’d been since the flowers had been given to her. She almost wanted to say he was jealous, but she was afraid that even thinking it would put far too much… just too much in to the nonexistent relationship. Besides, Danny was hardly one to sit back and hide his jealousy. If he were, she would know, and he wasn’t.

As she turned to glance back at him the earrings brushed along her jaw, a cool reminder that so far her expectations hadn’t been met. Her hesitation as she wondered if she was wrong went unnoticed, but Sam was sure that was only because Danny was staring at his plate and the food there—though Sam was pretty sure that calling whatever he’d let them serve him food was an insult to anything that was actually edible. She turned back toward the front of the line, moving forward behind Tucker, her skin still hyper sensitive to the unfamiliar touch of the earrings.

She paid for her salad and followed Tucker, Danny still silent and brooding behind her. His presence was almost uncomfortable; Sam wondered if she should have left the earrings at home. But there were so pretty, and Sam did sometimes give into her need to be feminine.

Valerie was at their table again with Tucker, talking animatedly about some new game that Tucker had gotten her interested in. It was, ironically enough, about ghost hunting, though it had nothing to do with Amity Park or Danny Phantom. But when Sam slid in to the chair next to Tucker and Danny sat between her and Valerie the conversation slowed to include them.

“I don’t have it,” Sam answered when Valerie asked if she’d tried it. But she smiled at the other girl’s friendliness, grateful that it was genuine. It was hard at first to accept Valerie into their small circle, but once she had let go of the idea that Danny wasn’t the enemy and made peace with his other half, it was hard to hate her. Sam hated to admit it (and rarely did), but she could understand Valerie’s initial hatred. In the other girl’s shoes with the same mindset she’d once had, Sam might very well have hated Danny’s ghost half, too.

Thank god she wasn’t, because the moment she’d stopped being an insufferable shallow bitch she’d have killed herself in utter shame. But Valerie was much nicer when she wasn’t said insufferable shallow bitch, and especially when she wasn’t trying to kill Danny.

“Are you going to?” the dark-haired girl asked, her fork waving in the air questioningly with lettuce wobbling on the tines. “The soundtrack is great. It’s like ghost hunting to a rock concert.”

Tucker chuckled, and Sam bit back a laugh of her own. Valerie certainly acted like they knew her secret, though none of them ever told her. It was simply easier to let her keep hers while they kept theirs. But sometimes the irony was just too funny.

“Speaking of music,” Danny interrupted. “I finished burning that CD, Tuck. If you want to come home with me after school I can give it back to you.”

“Right,” Tucker grumbled teasingly. “Two months after I gave it to you.”

“What CD?” Valerie asked curiously, and when Tucker answered she squealed. “Oh my god, I love My Chem. Are you going to go to the concert?”

Tucker shook his head. “I’m going to try and get tickets, but I already spent my Christmas money. I have to wait till I get some at Christmas.”

“They’re going to be sold out by then,” Sam put in, deciding that getting tickets for Tucker would be her Christmas gift.

“I know,” Tucker moaned. “I really want to go.” He looked at her hopefully. “Do you think you could get us all tickets and I’d pay you back for two of them?”

Sam laughed out loud as his cheeks reddened, even with his dark skin, as he glanced sidelong at Tucker. “We’ll see,” she temporized. “But they don’t go on sale until the twenty-third.”

Tucker gave a disheartened groan that seemed to echo through the suddenly much quieter cafeteria. The sudden weight in her stomach as she saw Danny’s face turn stony had her turning her head hesitantly towards the cafeteria doors. The near familiar snow coated uniform of the courier had her heart jumping with the sudden renewal of anticipation even as her stomach twisted at the shuttered look in Danny’s eyes.

Once again Sam cursed Star half a dozen times for not being able to keep her big, gossip-mongering mouth closed. Hundreds of eyes were following the courier as he was escorted straight to her by an amused Mr. Lancer. Sam silently cursed him, too, completely unaware of the fact that her eyes were wide and her mouth was opened slightly making her look startled, something that the entire population of Casper High had never seen on the girl.

And while Mr. Lancer stood there with his smug little smile Sam could only nod when the courier asked her to verify her name and then wished her yet another happy holidays and then handed her a slim mauve colored envelope. By the time Sam stopped staring at it the courier was gone, Mr. Lancer apparently having followed him, and the cafeteria was beginning to show signs of life again. To her great misfortune every word spoken was speculation about what was in the envelope.

After seeing the curiosity on Valerie’s face, and the mixed surprise and thought in Tucker’s, Sam didn’t have the nerve to look at Danny, afraid of what she’d find there. Instead she slipped a finger beneath the single unsealed side of the envelope’s flap, being careful not to cut her finger as she worked the flap free. When she reached inside and withdrew the small sheaf of thick papers, she nearly dropped them as she did the envelope itself.

In her hands were four front row tickets to the My Chemical Romance concert that wasn’t going on sale for almost two weeks.

“Oh my god,” she breathed.

Then the tickets did fall from her hands as she scrambled or the envelope on the floor even as Tucker and Danny both reached for what she had just dropped. As they looked she reached trembling fingers into the envelope to withdraw a small cream-colored card embossed with three golden hens. The shuddering gasp she breathed out was as triumphant and frightened at the same time.

“The twelve days of Christmas,” she whispered as she looked up. Tucker was incredulous; Valerie was staring at her in disbelief. And Danny’s eyes were utterly betrayed.


	4. Chapter 4

**Saturday, December 16 th (Nine days until Christmas)**

 

When Tucker rapped a Christmas carol on her bedroom door before ten in the morning, Sam decided that it was quite possible that she only needed one best friend. She was sure of it when a supremely morose Danny followed Tucker in as Sam struggled to bury herself back into her bed beneath her blankets. No matter how high her parents were willing to set the thermostat it was always cold in her room; the drawback to the large window seat she often made use of. Most days she thought it was worth the trade. The rest, she loathed the cold with a passion unequaled.

“Come on, get up, Sam,” Tucker ordered as he tugged off his knit cap and flipped the snow on it at her.

She shrieked at the sudden wet cold and yanked three blankets over her head. “Not a chance in hell,” she told him coldly. “I’m not going out in that.”

Tucker gave her a Cheshire grin. “That’s why I have a bucket of fresh snow outside your door. Get up, get dressed, and come out and play, or you’re wearing it.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Try me,” he grinned back.

“You bastard,” Sam huffed, having no doubt that he meant it. She gathered up her blankets around her before disappearing without a word into her closet. It wasn’t the first time one or the other of her boys had enforced her leaving the house, and she was almost accustomed to changing in the walk-in with them stalking her silently from outside it.

When she emerged, warmly dressed in jeans, a sweatshirt and jacket (complete with thermals underneath and heavy gortex lined boots) she stalked over to Tucker where he lounged on her bed and delivered a harsh kick to his shins. As he howled she growled at him. “Don’t you ever threaten me with snow again or I’ll make sure you need crutches.”

Behind her Danny chuckled and she whipped her head about to share out the glare. “I can’t believe you fell for it,” he told her as he chucked an airplane folded five past her head to Tucker. “I bet you’d refuse no matter what.”

She was as silent as Danny as she followed Tucker, Danny once again trailing behind. This time though Sam got the feeling that Danny and Tucker were bracketing her to cut off any chance of escape. Not that she had anywhere she could go to hide from them without spending the rest of the day freezing. She couldn’t go home; it was the first place they’d look for her, and she couldn’t go to either of their houses because that would be her next logical move. But she really didn’t want to be around them, especially not Danny. She needed to think, and she needed to think away from them.

It was pure autopilot that led her to the park, her thoughts turned inward. It was so confusing to think about a stranger giving her these gifts. The flowers were one thing, anyone could have done that. The tickets, too, were something that anyone could have guessed that she might like. More than difficult—fucking impossible—to come by. Connections, money, and discretion. Sam didn’t know anyone she might know who was capable of that.

But the earrings? Those were the real mystery, one that she hadn’t allowed herself to think about for days. Not many people knew that her favorite gemstone was actually sapphire, not even her parents. She’d told Danny and Tucker, both once, and what Danny knew Jazz knew. But not even her own parents knew—they were predisposed to diamonds. Even Jack and Maddie, one the occasions in the last few years they’d given her amethyst, a complement to her favorite color.

She was utterly confused, and she hated it. She was hurting Danny, and she hated that more.

There was a piece of her that had hoped it was him behind it. She’d wondered, even through his silence and moodiness after the first two gifts. It was possible; even given his inadequacy to lie. Being quiet about it and acting moody didn’t necessarily mean that he was lying, that he hadn’t been behind the gifts. But yesterday with the tickets had driven doubt inside. Not just doubt, Sam could admit. Even if she wanted it to be Danny, how could he afford four tickets to a concert that wasn’t even on sale yet? Not even that, a concert that was probably going to sell out the first day?

And still, it was nice that there was someone who liked her enough to take the time to do this. Even if she didn’t know who they were, it was nice that someone wanted her. Unless her parents were behind this somehow. Sam had no idea how she would figure out if that were the case, but she was sure she’d come up with something.

She was fully prepared to do so, but at that moment a snowball hit her square in the face making her stagger back, slip off the sidewalk and into a snow heap. She shrieked outrage but when she started to rise, hands already gathering snow, she got nailed in the side of the head, sending her back into the snow.

“Too slow, Sam!” Danny shouted, and she rolled to her stomach, hands tucking together before she regained her feet, sending the freshly packed snow straight at Danny.

He flashed intangible, and she writhed as more snow came her way, this time splattering across her shoulder, pieces of the icy ammunition hitting her neck and making her shiver. “No fair!” she cried, turning to Tucker. “Two against one isn’t fair unless we’re up against Danny!”

“All’s fair in love and snowball fights, Sam,” Tucker shot back, as well as two more snowballs while Danny got her again from behind.

She shrieked as she tried to duck, and only Danny’s hit, between her shoulders instead of her lower back. More snow scattered in her hair sending damp chills along the back of her neck, and Sam shrieked again, this time a mixture of fun and mortal terror as her best friends gave chase. She ran zigzag, aiming for the gazebo on the far side of the park near the main entrance. If she could make it there she was sure she stood a chance against the two of them.

Two more snowballs hit bit Sam ignored them, and the cold they brought, as she already started mentally mapping how she could fortify her chosen fortress. She skidded to a stop, ducking inside, hands already pulling snow in as she fell to her knees. In the few minutes it took her to make a small pile of halfway decent ammunition Sam expected at best a hail of snowballs, and at worst, Danny and Tucker overrunning her position, and when it didn’t come, she dared to peek her head up over the edge of the ice-covered wood. She had a snowball at the ready in each hand, and was already planning to duck back down.

Until she saw a large brown truck parked at the entrance in the corner of her eye. She turned, not even thinking that she was vulnerable, but she needn’t have worried; no attack came. In truth, even if one had come Sam would have been incapable of fighting back, because the selfsame courier who’d delivered to her the last two days was walking up the path, scanning the park until his eyes lit on hers.

He waved, Sam waved back tentatively, in habit more than actually to welcome him.

“Miss Manson,” he said, smiling as he passed her a small brown box. “You keep having a merry Christmas.”

“You too,” she echoed back as she stared down at the box. She felt more than heard Danny and Tucker come up from behind.

Tucker muttered softly, “Another one?” and she nodded without looking at him. “Open it then,” he told her. She complied.

The package itself was a plain box, but inside was a wrapped box, green with metallic holly leaves on it, and a red bow that sparkled in the sunlight. She didn’t even appreciate the wrapping as she scraped her nails across it, ripping it open before attacking the carefully taped box within. With that opened she looked curiously at the contents before lifting out a pretty wolf plush doll, and then the rolled certificate inside.

“I’ve adopted a wolf named Lakota at Yellowstone park,” she said helplessly, the box falling from her hands as she held out the certificate to her friends.

Danny bent to pick up a gold card, looking at it for a moment before holding it out to her. “That’s great, Sam? He said, his voice strained, and Sam stared the pencil sketch of four birds and musical notes. Danny looked sick as she took it from him.


	5. Chapter 5

**Sunday, December 17 th (Eight days until Christmas)**

 

“Yeah, I don’t think Skulker is going to be a problem for a while,” Tucker was telling Sam as she picked at her soy melt. She’d agreed to have lunch with him, sans Danny, since Danny was freshly grounded. Only a day, and only because he refused to tell his mom where he’d gotten the cut on his jaw that had required five stitches.

Sam hated that she was grateful he wasn’t there.

“He’s really upset about this, isn’t he?” she asked quietly.

Tucker gave a helpless shrug. Even his triple meaty cheesy (death) burger was being picked at. Part of that could have been due to the fact that he’d already eaten three, but Sam had never seen Tucker leave meat untouched, no matter how full he should have been. She often thought that he had some miniature ghost portal in his stomach that let him eat as much meat as he wanted. It would certainly explain where the lunch lady randomly found most of her meat.

“I’ve been telling you for years that Danny likes you,” he told her, his voice subdued. “I’m pretty sure that he’s been in love with you since we were juniors.”

“That was just last year,” she responded acerbically, unsure how to respond to Tucker telling her that Danny Fenton was in love with her. Especially when she’d barely seen any evidence that he might actually _like_ like her, as opposed to liking her at all.

He rolled his eyes at her, and Sam picked up a fry and threw it at him. “Seriously, Sam. I know you’ve been practically living in denial—”

“I swear to whatever god you choose to believe in that if you make a bad pun about rivers I will kill you where you sit,” she growled at him.

His hands came up defensively as Tucker leaned back in his side of the booth. “No bad puns here, at least not about rivers. This is too serious to joke about anyway.”

Sam’s shoulders dropped, because she knew that if even Tucker was admitting the seriousness of it, then her instincts weren’t at all wrong. “I know,” she told him miserably. “I feel so horrible, I can tell this whole Christmas thing—”

“Secret admirer thing,” Tucker interjected.

“Is hurting him,” she continued on with barely a pause. “But I didn’t ask for this, and I don’t know who’s doing it.”

In a rare moment of maturity, Tucker reached across the table and laid his hand over hers. “I know that. And Danny knows it, too. That’s why this is so hard for him, I think. He needs someone to blame, and he hasn’t got a person to lay it on except himself.”

“If he’d said something…” Sam let the soft words trail off, but when she looked up at Tucker she knew he knew exactly what she was saying. She’d told him once, a long time ago, how much she cared about Danny. As young as she was she was sure that if she wasn’t in love with him, she wasn’t far from it.

“I think that’s why Danny snapped last night. I told him that he should have made his move a long time ago, that he had no one to blame for this but himself.” The guilt echoed through his words, but Tucker owned up to what he’d said.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Sam told him without reproach.

Tucker shrugged again and resumed poking at his burger. “Yeah, I know. But it needed to be said. He felt better afterward, except for the whole needing stitches part.”

Sam finally pushed her soy melt away, leaning back in the booth. “I wish I knew who it was.”

Tucker chuckled a little. “You know I’ve set up book on it?”

She snorted. “Figures. How much is your kickback?”

“Ten percent,” he answered blithely. “Right now, half the school thinks that it’s someone who isn’t a student at Casper, and the other half thinks it’s Danny.” He twirled a finger through the air with a little frown. “I’ve had at least a dozen calls about changing or withdrawing their bets, though. Danny’s losing his momentum in it.”

“Oh,” Sam said. For a moment she thought that maybe she might have missed something, that she could be wrong and it could still be Danny. Despite how the general population treated her and Danny, they had pretty good instincts about blossoming romances. If they didn’t think it was Danny, then there was a good chance they were right, which went along with Sam’s belief that it was someone else.

“Sam, chin up,” Tucker consoled her. “Just because some bozo is dropping all this on you doesn’t mean you owe him something.”

“I—”

Sam stopped short as she looked towards the sound of jingling bells to her left. The fact that a group of five men dressed as elves had managed to sneak up on her and Tucker (or that they simply weren’t paying enough attention to realize they were there) amazed Sam, and the first thing she could think was, _Oh hell no._

“Sam Manson?” the one nearest to her asked, green eyes sparkling with good cheer, something that Sam was beginning to really hate, had her shaking her head no until Elf #1 held up a picture of her. She narrowed her eyes at it and then him as he told her, “We were warned that you would probably try and deny it.”

“Warned by who?” She leapt on the chance to get an answer without having to continue the farce that was being perpetrated on her unwilling person, but all five elves simultaneously shook their heads.

“My apologies, miss, but anonymity is part of our holiday service.”

“Service?” Tucker asked as Sam thought she might should try to make a hasty exit. But it was too late even before Tucker finished his single word query.

As one they began singing. “You’ve got my heart on Christmas, inside my soul your love remains, love’s in our hearts on Christmas day…”

While she could appreciate music other than her preferred genre, and even had the highest respect for a cappella performances, Sam could only bury her face in her arms on the table wishing that whatever the sappy song they were singing was over and done with. She’d never been more mortified in her life, and Sam had lived through some harrowing experiences, up to and including wearing hideous dresses she’d prefer to be dead rather than don. And yet here she was being serenaded by five grown men wearing red and white striped tights in the middle of the Nasty Burger with too many of her schoolmates to think that no one would hear about this latest Christmas stunt.

Honestly, if whoever was doing this was into his twelve days of Christmas, why couldn’t he just _buy_ her five golden rings instead of forcing her to submit to this humiliation? It wasn’t like he wasn’t interested in spending money on the scheme.

She could feel Tucker’s foot tapping frantically against hers as the song wound down, and it was all she could do to force herself to lift her eyes. Sam wasn’t a coward, but right now, she was feeling really damned close to one. As one their voices faded into silence before each one presented her with golden note cards, each one bearing a single ring etched into it. She almost laughed at it, since she’d known that sooner or later the card (cards in this case) would be presented, with nary a clue to who was doing this.

With a tip of pointy little elfin hats four of them began leaving, humming a Christmas carol as they did, the last smiling at her.

“Merry Christmas, Miss Manson,” he said as he handed her a small box that was wrapped in green and red striped paper.

Then he was gone and Sam was staring at the latest gift, since apparently being humiliated in the Nasty Burger wasn’t gift enough. Her fingers didn’t tremble this time as she worked the paper loose to find a CD case inside, a festive homemade label on it bearing her name.

“A CD, Tuck. He gave me a CD,” she told him numbly as she flipped it over to look at the back. There were songs listed, several she recognized, some that she didn’t. Possession, done in an excellent cover by a band she was vaguely familiar with called Evans Blue. Your Guardian Angel, which she knew to be by Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, since she had the CD that it was from. Her eyes skimmed the list, taking in the next nine songs and artists with ease, recognizing most, until she came to the final one.

One Sweet Love, by Sara Bareilles.

She didn’t know the artist or the song, but only took a moment for Sam to make the single common thread between all twelve, and when she did she turned hesitant eyes to Tucker.

“I might owe him something, Tuck.” She handed him the CD. “I think he’s in love with me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lyrics sung to Sam are from _Love's in our Hearts on Christmas Day_ by N Sync.


	6. Chapter 6

**Monday, December 18 th (Seven days until Christmas)**

 

Monday morning brought a flurry of activity for Sam. She’d forgotten, with the drama that her secret admirer (the moniker certainly fit, as much as she hated to admit it) had put her through at the Nasty Burger. She’d gotten an e-mail from Tucker before bed the night before that fully two-thirds of the people who’d made book with him on Danny being the culprit had withdrawn or changed their bets after word of her very public serenade had made it out. it had kept her up half the night, and the other half she’d spent dreaming of geese who were intent on flocking to her as if she were their mistress.

She was already dreading school. She was dreading seeing Danny even more. Sam didn’t dare try and disillusion herself into thinking that Danny didn’t already know about the singing elves and the CD, though she hoped to god that Tucker had exercised restraint and not told Danny what the link between the twelve songs was.

And despite the pain and hurt that it was causing her because of Danny, Sam couldn’t help but feel even more cherished now. a stranger, a complete and utter stranger, and somehow she felt so close to this faceless, nameless entity. Logically Sam knew that she couldn’t wait for Danny forever; emotionally Sam knew that she always would. But knowing that there was someone out there who was willing to go to such lengths (and please don’t let it be someone who was put up to it by her parents; that would be so crushing) made her feel special.

Between the jewelry, the flowers, and the personal touches laid in by knowing how much she loved wildlife conservation, and wolves in particular, as well as taking the time to make a mix CD despite that she had several of the songs already… Sam couldn’t deny that she had never felt more like a girl than ever before, even when she was convinced to get dressed up for school formals.

But the irritation of not knowing who it was behind the gifts was a nagging problem that her mind couldn’t seem to let go of, even in her sleep. _Hence the geese,_ she thought as she tugged on her trusty boots, lacing them tightly up her calves before pulling her jeans down over them.

“This is why I’m Jewish. Eight days of presents and none of this insane song stuff,” she muttered irritated, flipping a brush through her hair and tugging a soft knit cap on to protect her ears. The movement gave her a glimpse of the earrings, bringing on another surge of near violent annoyance, and in a fit of pique she lifted them out of her ears and laid them on her dresser.

That in itself was annoying beyond belief, the fact that she could go from one moment to feeling so treasured that she couldn’t help but wonder how her mystery man would top his already intriguing enterprises to wanting to gut the enigma without question.

She glared at her reflection in the mirror, daring a smile to come and firmly ignoring the faint twinge of guilt in her stomach as she ignored the earrings and picked up her eyeliner, lining her eyes in the deep black with quick, easy movements that spoke of long practiced habit. A touch of neutral eye shadow and a hint of the violet that brought out the shade in her unusually colored eyes, and she grabbed her purple lip gloss to apply on the run as she heard the doorbell downstairs ring.

Tucker and Danny were picking her up at her house this morning since her parents were out of town. Overprotective of them, she knew, since her parents left her home alone on a regular basis. This time would be short, since they’d return by the middle of the week, but Tucker and Danny always took it upon themselves to baby her while she played mistress of the house.

“I’m coming!” she shouted down the stairs as she snagged her jacket from the newel at the top of the stairs, sliding her arms in and zipping it as she skidded to a stop at the door. Tucker and Danny were waiting for her, cheeks pals and cold when she opened the door. She grabbed her backpack up from the floor and flipped the fuzzy spider onto her back.

“Sorry, I overslept,” she said, knowing that she was only running a minute or two late and that they had plenty of time to get to school without being tardy.

“No worries, Sam,” Danny told her, looking more cheerful than she’d expected him to. Sam glanced at Tucker who gave a hint of a shrug before she turned back to Danny with a quick smile.

“Alright, let’s go,” she told him, locking the door behind her before following them down the walk. “Maybe tomorrow we can meet at Tuck’s since we have to pass his house anyway?”

Tucker snickered and Danny just shot her a sidelong glance that made her squirm mentally.

“I think we’re fine picking you up here, Sam,” Tucker told her as he gestured to the icy roads.

Danny laughed as he added, “Besides, Tucker can always use the exercise.”

“Hey!” Tucker exclaimed. “I don’t need more than what you guys already force on to me! I have to chase you all over town at least four days a week, Danny, and Sam’s mental enough to go to the gym on her own.”

“I have one at home,” Sam put in smugly as they turned the corner onto Tucker’s street, his house nearing with every step. She almost stopped when she saw the delivery van in his drive, but shook the need to off. “You expecting something, Tucker?” she asked as she pointed up the sidewalk at it.

“What? Oh, no,” Tucker said as they neared.

Danny had grown quiet again, but when Sam glanced at him where he walked next to her he didn’t seem unhappy. Maybe, she thought, he was alright with what was going on, since she had no control over it. It was entirely possible that he and Tucker had had a heart to heart since she’d last seen Danny. She let the nerves go as relief that, for once, the delivery obviously couldn’t be for her. The relief was short lived.

“Good morning, Miss Manson,” said her now regular courier, and Sam stopped dead, slipping in her haste and falling backwards. Her fall was broken by Danny’s arms around her waist, and Sam blushed bright red, the heat much worse than normal because of the cold air on her face.

His fingers squeezed her waist once before he let her go, and Sam could barely look at him as she accepted the slim package without a word. Finesse was ignored as she looked at the box. The pretty white paper was very plain but for the silver swirls across it and flecks of incandescent glitter, and the silver bow had six white geese chased across the six loops of ribbon. She tore the bow off, fingers crumpling it before the paper followed it to the unevenly salted sidewalk.

The box was slim, long, and plain black velvet. _Like the earrings,_ she realized as she opened it. Nestled inside was, she saw as her heart skipped a beat (the traitorous thing), a bracelet that matched the earrings. Sparkling white gold links that housed more deep blue sapphire rounds, separated each by two small princess cut diamonds. The square shape was elegant amidst the larger blue solitaires, and Sam couldn’t help but feel helpless as she lifted the bracelet from the box.

She didn’t dare look at either Tucker or Danny, for fear of what she would find in their faces, and she didn’t dare not put the bracelet on, because she desperately wanted to know who’d given it to her.


	7. Chapter 7

**Tuesday, December 19 th (Six days until Christmas)**

 

By the time lunch had rolled around Sam couldn’t decide if she was a bundle of nerves or a bundle of anticipation. She was six for six in the gifts department, and wanting to know what this, the seventh day would bring had her glancing around cautiously and curiously every few minutes. She was luck that her teachers all liked her for the most part and knew her to be a good student, or else she might have spent her last ‘free’ day in trouble. Exams started tomorrow, and between them and her secret admirer, Sam was riddled with anxiety.

Despite a jacket, two sweaters and a pair of witnesses who wouldn’t dare say anything, somehow before second period was over the entire population of Casper High (right down to the teachers, to her chagrin) was quite aware of the sapphire and diamond tennis bracelet she’d been gifted by her amorphous gift-giver. It was painfully embarrassing; she had students she couldn’t even put a face to much less a name coming up to her and acting like they knew her and had the right to demand to see this gift or hear that story of delivery.

It was all she could do not to smack them silly. She bit back a smile from that as she measured out some distilled water into a test tube. In recent years Sam had learned that fighting ghosts had given her violent habits; she was much more likely to physically show her displeasure now than she had been when she began freshman year. But, and the feeling of justice was heavy, smacking her fellow students would be so much more satisfying than just telling them to fuck off. Which was her standard answer, of course.

It didn’t always work. She’d had to listen to Paulina and Star go on about the bracelet this morning, the darker haired girl joining her friend in homeroom before the bell went off. Sam was sure that Paulina existed only to torment her, which made the fact that her somewhat rival was raving about the bracelet and demanding to know where the earrings were.

Sam still hadn’t put them back in; if she did it would be like admitting that she was enjoying the attention the admirer was giving her. Not that wearing the bracelet didn’t say the same thing, but she’d taken the earrings out, she’d drawn the proverbial line in the sand. Wearing them now was acceding his victory.

“Alright class, if everyone’s ready I’ll be bringing around the hydrochloric acid around. I want you to get your litmus strips prepped,” Mrs. Hodgkin’s instructed them.

Sam made sure that her protective goggles were firm on her face. She liked her eyesight too much to risk it, even if there were others in the lab who weren’t as careful. For this she had taken off her jacket and rolled her sweaters up to be secured with rubber bands. She’d even acceded the bracelet to her jeans pocket to protect it, since she was sure that acid would probably harm it. But that she’d put back on; it was pretty and she enjoyed the weight at her risk.

Yet another change of heart, she realized as she pursed her lips. Again, Sam hated that she couldn’t stay annoyed. She hated that she was beginning to anticipate learning who he was.

“Your slide?”

Sam nearly jumped, but covered the surprised reaction by holding her slide out to the teacher for the three carefully placed drops of acid. This was the best part of AP chemistry, Sam decided; being allowed to perform experiments that no one else in the school could in regular chemistry was heady, the trust inherently placed in those who qualified. She had smugly lauded it over Danny and Tucker, though neither of them had even applied for any AP classes. Danny didn’t have the time for them, and Tucker was far too lazy. Besides, Tucker was already way ahead of the AP computer science class that was available, so there wasn’t any need.

She’d just finished prepping her litmus and apparatus when the door opened and Sam looked up. Again, the blue uniform, but this time Sam didn’t blush. It was a woman, and her blue uniform was that of a local delivery rather than the ‘usual’ courier, and she was already stepping back from the dangerous chemicals on her work space when Mrs. Hodgkin’s called her to the front of the class.

“Sam, you’ll need to accept this one out in the hall,” the teacher told her with a faint smile.

The dark-haired girl cringed a little at the obvious ease with which the older woman addressed her; oh yes, all the teachers knew what was going on. (Tucker had even told her just at lunch that Mr. Lancer had placed a discreet bet with him. Firmly on Danny, which had made her smile.) “Yes, ma’am,” she muttered as she turned and followed the delivery woman out. Sam could only sigh as the door began swinging closed behind her and the scrape of stools. She knew that if she turned around there was a very good chance that there would be half her class pressed to the window in one door, and the other half at the other.

“So what is it this time?” Sam asked when she finally looked up instead of following behind with her eyes on the floor.

When she saw it she could hardly breathe, the arrangement was so pretty. Small, not as massive as the one she’d received on what was obviously the first day of her gifting spree, but that was fitting since this arrangement wasn’t of actual flowers. It was fruit, arranged carefully, the red bucket festive for the holidays. Strawberries, half of them dipped in chocolate, pineapple stars and carved daisies, grapes, cantaloupe and honeydew.

Sam bit her lip as she accepted the edible arrangement, her eyes flashing in surprise when the woman addressed her by name.

“Merry Christmas, Sam,” the courier told her with a smile as she flourished a red card with her name carefully inscribed on the front.

Sam didn’t even pay attention as the delivery-woman left as she took the card and, juggling the fruit to one arm so that she could pluck the card out. When she had the envelope open and the snow white printed paper in her hand, she found herself smiling at a scene straight out of Swan Lake. Seven ballerinas in flowing white costumes were poised on pointe in perfect position, and Sam only smiled.


	8. Chapter 8

**Wednesday, December 20 th (Five days until Christmas)**

 

It had been years since Sam had felt uncomfortable climbing the stairs to Danny’s room. He’d been fourteen, it was just after Pariah Dark, when Sam had been afraid that Danny was dead and no one wanted to tell her. That was a secret that Sam had never confessed to anyone, not even Tucker who had to have been as afraid. It was an unspoken pact between them not to speak of the fear whenever Danny got seriously hurt; it was too hard just to go through the everyday act of pretending that Danny wasn’t constantly putting himself in mortal danger to let fear of past dangers rule them.

The fear that ruled her now wasn’t past, but very much in the here and now. it was fear that a stranger was driving a wedge between them, driving them apart and stretching the friendship more than it ever had been. The stairs creaked a little under her feet, and then the wooden hall as she approached his room, but she didn’t let her unease stop her until she was in his open doorway.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she breathed out as the sight of him brought her up short. It shouldn’t have, she’d seen him in varying stages of undress for years as his primary nurse, a nickname which Jazz had given her when she learned that Sam had to deal with the injuries since Tucker not only feared needles and hospitals and doctors, but would pass out at the sight of blood.

His head whipped around and Sam’s eyes were drawn to the neat black stitches along his jaw. It was the first time she’d actually seen them, and the healing wound effectively drew her attention from his lack of shirt and the wet hair that made her see the dangerous man the rest of the female population at Casper swooned over.

“Sam,” he said to her. “What are you doing here?”

She frowned at him, her customary snark coming through and killing the nerves and fear. “I don’t know, Danny. Maybe I wanted to hang out with my best friend?”

He flushed and she felt immediately guilty, but he gave her a sheepish grin. “You surprised me is all. Usually I know when you’re coming. You wanna help me tape it back up?”

“Right, nurse time,” Sam groused, but she didn’t say no. she collected the first aid kit on his desk on her way to his bed, sitting and waiting for him to hunt a shirt out of his closet and pull it on before sitting next to her. “Does it still hurt?”

“Nah.” He shook his head as she grabbed a pillow and dropped it on her lap, patting it until he lowered himself so that his face was stitches side up. “It’s nothing I can’t handle.”

“Yeah,” she said softly, then teased him. “You’re a superhero; you can handle anything.”

“Sometimes,” he replied while she laid gauze across the stitches and taped the edges.

“I wanted to talk to you,” Sam finally confessed. “Are… Are you okay with this?”

One blue eye flicked up to look at her as he quirked an eyebrow. “It really doesn’t hurt anymore, Sam. I’m fine.”

She smoothed the tape one last time before he sat back up and looked at her. She didn’t meet his gaze instead picking at the roll of tape. “Not that, Danny.” She paused, breathing in once before jumping in feet first. “The presents. This whole secret admirer thing.”

“Oh. That,” he said. It was like watching a door close in her face for a moment as he turned from her and lay back on the bed.

“Are you alright with it?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Danny asked her. It seemed like the life had leeched out of his voice making the guilt come back, pricking at her like a hundred needles in her heart.

“Tucker said—He thinks you might be jealous.”

And like that it was on the table between them. A chance for him to confirm what Tucker liked to tell her, or to prove that she was right. In her heart, Sam couldn’t believe that Danny loved her as more than a friend. She couldn’t believe that he would hide it from her—lie to her—for as long as Tucker tried to tell her that Danny had been. Danny wasn’t that good, his acting was far from slick. She would know.

The smirk that he gave her was both cynical and jaded. “There’s nothing to be jealous about, Sam.”

The words hurt, but before Sam could say anything Maddie was calling up the stairs. “Sam? Are you here?”

She swallowed, staring into Danny’s eyes as she answered, raising her voice to be heard. “Yeah, Mrs. F. I’m doctoring Danny.”

The footsteps neared and Sam turned away from Danny before Maddie entered the room, a cardboard box with a bright red bow on top in her hands. There were holes cut in the sides, and Sam looked at Maddie curiously before it dawned on her that her secret admirer must have struck again, and this time at Danny’s house. It surprised her because she hadn’t even known she was coming to Danny’s house until twenty minutes before she arrived.

“This was just delivered here for you, Sam,” Maddie said as she handed the box over. She stayed as Sam took the box and set it on her lap, her fingers plucking at the tiny card tucked beneath the bow.

It was what she expected, the old-fashioned artwork printed small was of eight girls carrying pails. Whether or not they were actually milk pails or not didn’t matter; the sentiment was understood and Sam laid it to the side as she lifted the lid and laid it to the side. On a small blue towel was a tiny bundle of deep gray fur. A sleeping kitten, Sam realized, and exhaled shakily. Her parents would flip out, they’d never allowed her a pet.

She’d keep it anyway.

It was Danny’s hands that reached in and lifted the tiny thing out, making its head lift as it twisted it around and meowed in its small voice. A strong hand lifted the kitten’s hind legs, cradling it securely in the careful cage of fingers. When Maddie moved the box and Danny settled the little mewling bundle in her arms he smiled at her and said, “It’s a boy. He looks like a little shadow.”

“Then that can be his name.” Sam smiled back.


	9. Chapter 9

**Thursday, December 21 st (Four days until Christmas)**

 

Volleyball was Sam’s favorite free activity in gym, especially when she could get more than just her and Danny and Tucker to play. It was hard, sometimes, because Tucker was terrible and she always had him on her team, and Danny was inevitably snared by the females of whatever team he was on. It didn’t make having a nice competitive game easy, but when she could get one going Sam always enjoyed it.

“Tucker! It’s coming your way!” she yelled, hoping that he could at least clip it and send the ball back up in the air.

It was a white streak headed for his head and Tucker ducked, much to her dismay. She tried to dive for it, barking her knees on the gym floor, and her fingers missed it by inches. Sam groaned as she rolled over to lie on her back for a moment, a bruise already forming along the side of her left knee.

“God, Tuck. Why do I even try with you?” Her voice was pained as she hauled herself up to sit and rub her knees, inspecting the faint blue that was rapidly darkening.

He shrugged at her. “Just lucky?”

She glared up at him. “Well, at least you didn’t scream like a girl this time.” Her glare turned grin. Out of the corner of her eye Sam caught a shadow nearing and turned to Danny’s quiet footsteps.

“You okay?” he asked, kneeling and moving her hands to inspect her knees. He hissed at the bruise that was now edging past purple and towards black. “That looks nasty.”

His fingers skimmed the skin, his powers rising to cool the swelling flesh. Sam flushed a little, his fingers feeling far too right at that moment, almost as if he had looked for this excuse to touch her. She shook her head knowing that she was reading far too much into the simple, friendly help. It certainly didn’t help that she wanted to read too much into it; but that was something she needed to shove away as deep as she could. Danny had told her he had nothing to be jealous of and, even if it felt ambiguous, it wasn’t. He had no need to be jealous, he didn’t care for her like that.

“It’s fine,” Sam said quietly, shifting herself away from his cooling touch and scrambling to her feet. She wasted no time in sending a kick Tucker’s way, barking his shin hard enough to know he’d have a bruise, too. She snapped at him, “Next time don’t even bother ducking. At least your head might have been a good stop for the ball.”

He raised his hands defensively as Danny climbed to his own feet. “Hey, don’t get pissed at me, Ms. Competitive. You know I suck at sports.”

Tucker was saved from the retort he could see sparking up in her eyes by Coach Tetslaff’s whistle, and Sam took the opportunity to flee her friends. To flee Danny, she could admit it. God, she wanted it to be him. The scene in his bedroom last night had only driven home how much she loved him, and how badly she wanted him to love her. But it wasn’t meant to be, and Sam buried the love and hurt as deeply as she could inside herself as she tugged her clothes out of her locker and headed for the shower.

She was one of the few girls in her gym class who routinely availed herself of the showers, but Sam was fastidious and didn’t want to sit through her final period with sweat drying and smelling dank. Besides, she had nothing to be ashamed of. She was thin and maintained her healthy weight easily through her vegan diet and active lifestyle, and if anyone said anything about her navel ring and the tiny tattoo on her back, she was eighteen and legally allowed to express herself as she chose. (So far, the worst thing that had happened was that Paulina had called her a dyke in front of half the gym class; Sam had told Paulina she was jealous because unlike Paulina, Sam didn’t have tan lines. It still amused her at this late date.)

She was dripping and wrapped in a towel, readying herself to dress when coach Tetslaff interrupted her, a brilliant green envelope held out to her. Resigned, Sam took it, clinging to the towel with one hand and holding the next gift in the other. She tucked her towel and sat on the edge of the bench, ignoring the now gathering gaggle of females, and Star’s ever present demand to open it.

She did, and when she saw the card she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Straight out of _Fantasia_ , a movie Sam knew well from a childhood obsession. She didn’t know whether to think her admirer knew her so well, or that maybe it was just a coincidence. She was beginning to believe that there were no coincidences where this man was concerned; he knew far too much about her. She knew there would be nine, but she counted the tutu-bedecked hippo’s anyway. Four down either side of the picture, and the prima en pointe at the head.

“Nine ladies fucking dancing,” she muttered savagely as she opened the card to find a slip of paper neatly folded within. The seal at the top was all too familiar, and the neatly printed words threw her.

_Dear Miss Manson,_

_The Humane Society of Central Illinois thanks you for your donation. Because of it we will be able to feed and care for more animals in our continued effort to circumvent euthanasia._

Oh, he knew her. He _had_ to—this couldn’t be coincidence at all. He knew her, he was stalking her if she cared to be crude and blunt about it. She didn’t even finish drying properly before she tugged her clothes on and headed back to her locker to grab her backpack, the letter crumpled in her hand with the card as she ducked out of the locker room, not caring if the bell hadn’t rung. She knew Danny and Tucker would already be waiting, and she didn’t want to make them wait too long.

On sight she shoved her handful at Tucker.

“I have no idea who it is,” Sam said as she leaned against a wall, ignoring the envelope that was now in Tucker’s hands as Danny peered over his shoulder to read it. “He knows me. He has to. But I can’t figure out who it could be.”

Tucker thought about it for a second. “Hey, Sam? Who said it had to be a he?”


	10. Chapter 10

**Friday, December 22 nd (Three days until Christmas)**

 

Sam spent nearly a full day trying to wrap her mind around the idea that her secret admirer could be female. She didn’t really have a problem with the idea or, if it happened to be true, the fact of it. In truth, Sam had no problems with girls on the romantic front. She’d kissed one or two experimentally before deciding that she’d much prefer kissing Danny. But the experience hadn’t left her horrified and scarred. (It _had_ scarred Tucker though, because he couldn’t deal with the idea that girls wanted to kiss her and not him. Danny had stayed unusually silent which, in retrospect, made Sam continue over-thinking her secret admirer.)

 Tucker, of course, spent the entire day making pointed comments. Danny had looked mildly intrigued at the idea, though she thought amused would be a good substitute word for the look on his face every time Tucker said something. Even now as she was collecting her things and shoving them in her fuzzy spider backpack Tucker couldn’t help himself. And neither could she; Sam deliberately smacked him with the backpack as she slung it across her shoulder.

“Shut up, Tucker,” she ordered. “Just because you can’t get any girls to make out with you doesn’t mean you can make fun of the girls who want to make out with me.”

Tucker’s jaw dropped and he stared at her with eyes as big and round as saucers while Danny cracked up with her at his reaction. He gasped and gaped and as he floundered for a retort Sam grabbed Danny’s hand and dragged him out of the classroom with a near hysterical giggle.

“He had it coming,” she chortled, “so don’t ruin my revenge buzz.”

Danny trailed after her, completely unable to avoid being dragged as Sam ducked around people on her way for the main entrance. “Can I ask you a question, Sam?” he asked as she glanced back at him.

She shrugged as she separated two freshmen from each other and exited Casper High with a rush of freedom. “Go for it.”

“Do you want it to be a girl?”

Where she might have laughed if the question came from Tucker, or more likely kicked him again, Sam didn’t do either of those with Danny. She bit her lip and tilted her head to the side. “Would it matter if I did?” It was low, she knew, turning the question on him, but she didn’t know how to answer him at the moment without telling him what she actually wanted.

“No, Sam, and you know it,” he told her without hesitation. The sincerity in his blue eyes made her want to choke on the whole situation.

She gave him a smile that didn’t feel very cheerful. “I want it to be someone, and that someone isn’t a girl,” she temporized. Better that than saying she wanted it to be Danny, and unless he had a huge secret… The thought made her smile more genuine. “Besides, it’s not like I’m promising myself to whoever it is.”

“Jesus, Sam. You can’t say that to a guy and disappear. If you’re making out with chicks I want to watch!” Tucker exclaimed as he draped himself across his two best friends’ shoulders.

Sam writhed underneath his arm to glare at him before smacking him upside the head. “Jesus, Tucker. The next time you make out with a guy _I_ want to watch.”

“So… wrong…” Tucker gasped, one hand clutching his chest while the other tried to push her away. “We’re finally on Christmas break and you try to kill me first thing! Cruel, woman, just cruel.”

“So’s having to put up with you,” Sam muttered and smiled sweetly when he demanded she repeat what she said. “I said nothing, Tucker. You can’t prove a thing.”

He looked pleadingly at Danny, but Danny refused to help. “Dude, you’ve been mocking her all day without asking her if she wants it to be a girl.”

“You’re right,” Tucker said solemnly. Sam eyed him suspiciously as he turned to her, his hands clasped and his face sober. “Sam, which girl do you want it to be? Cause I hear the Star’s around every time—Hey! I need to live!”

Sam growled at him. “No. no, you don’t. You really don’t.” She swiped her backpack at him again once before Danny grabbed her arm and stepped between her and Tucker.

“Sam, you need to forgive him. He’s male, he’s stupid.” He glanced back at Tucker. “Tucker, you need to beg for your life.”

“But it’s a valid question,” Tucker retorted. “Star’s been there almost every time. It could be her.”

Sam sighed and all but crumpled to the stairs. Being the last day of school, the majority of the students had vacated as quickly as possible while Tucker courted imminent death. The ones that remained were mainly seniors, like they were, and none were anywhere near enough to hear the current speculation. Had they, Sam was sure she’d be mortified. And there was a very good chance the lesbian rumors from junior high would make the rounds once again.

“I’ll concede the possibility,” Sam said stiffly. There was no way around it since she had no proof her secret admirer was a he. In fact, given that the gifts thus far had been in good taste, the jewelry elegant and stylish, and the flowers picked with an eye to her tastes, Sam could almost believe that her admirer was indeed a female. The thought wasn’t pleasant, because that only cemented Danny far, far away from the list of suspects.

Boots thudded to a stop next to her, and Sam shivered at the snow on them. Sure, the stairs were cold and possibly ice coated in spots. But they were all snow free. She looked up, squinting at the sun glare and holding back the groan at her now familiar deliveryman.

“Miss Manson,” he said with a grin.

She held her face expressionless. “You can call me Sam. We’ve seen each other often enough.”

He laughed and she stood to accept the package he proffered. “Merry Christmas,” he told her before disappearing down the stairs with a chuckle. He was laughing at her, she just knew it.

Danny dropped down beside her as she began opening the package. This time the paper was plain brown, as if the admirer had gone with nothing more than the shipping wrap, but once she had it in her hands she could see that across the plain café color were smooth black lines, simple and sleek and the illusion of bodies and feet and a single line of ground far beneath the ten sketched bodies.

“So he strikes again,” Danny said as he ran his fingers across the paper. Sam could practically hear him counting them in his head. “What is it?”

The paper fell away easily and Sam absentmindedly shoved it at Tucker, her irritation not forgotten even in the face of a new gift. The box was black and shadowy, but the title across the top and the single technomonster on the front weren’t at all unfamiliar. Sam clutched the box to her stomach as she leaned forward and pressed her face to her knees, trying to fight the need to suddenly cry. Danny’s hand on her back and Tucker suddenly hovering at her side made her breathe in deeply, suck it up and get over it.

“It’s the new edition of Doomed,” she said clearly as she sat up. “It’s not out till after Christmas.”

“Wow,” Tucker breathed reverently as he reached out to touch the box. Sam let him take it, her mind focused on the newest clue, and Danny’s warm hand on her back utterly forgotten as she faced reality.

Her secret admirer was male. She simply couldn’t imagine another girl giving her Doomed as a gift, not with all of the other meaningful things going on. And her male secret admirer had the pull to not only afford all of this, but to get his hands on to not one, but two things that were out of the average guy’s reach. Which meant he wasn’t Danny.


	11. Chapter 11

**Saturday, December 23 rd (Two days until Christmas)**

 

When it came to cold, Sam could readily admit she was a wuss and a coward and any other word that might adequately express her distaste for it. Even if she loved living in Amity Park Sam didn’t think she would ever like freezing her better bits off every winter. Despite Tucker and Danny’s attempts to cheer her out of whatever melancholy mood had gripped her after the delivery of Doomed, Sam hadn’t managed to shake it for them. Not that she tried very hard once Tucker devolved into speculating about what girl might be stalking her.

Sam had gotten her own back by telling him about the two girls she’d kissed. By the time she kicked him out, and Danny by contamination, he was near catatonic while Danny laughed at him.

The cruelty she’d dealt him had revived her somewhat; his expressions were too hilarious not to get some sense of sick pleasure out of it. But Sam hadn’t tapped into the rush for very long. She’d said goodnight to her parents, ignored her mother’s attempts at suggesting they go shopping this weekend, and scooped Shadow up to carry him up the stairs and to her room. She was asleep before her clock turned to eight, and she didn’t stir at all barring shifting over so that Shadow could monopolize even more of the bed.

She slept past nine, though even once she woke she didn’t get out of bed. Shadow was still sleeping, curled on his side so just a hint of his white underbelly was showing. Sam smiled and slipped her fingers gently through his fur. He was a precious little thing, already bonded to her well enough that he tended to follow her about like a shadow. He was aptly named, in appearance and habit. And a rescue, she knew, because he’d been neutered before she was given him.

That meant something to her, too, and more than she would have thought until she realized that Shadow was a rescue. It all meant something to her, because whoever was doing this _knew_ her. She didn’t mean that he-she-they-whatever actually knew her face to face, because, let’s face it, Sam knew very well that she only really spoke to Tucker and Danny and Valerie. And she really, really hoped that Tucker or Valerie wasn’t behind this.

That left it to be a total stranger, at least by Sam’s standards. But they were putting serious effort into this, and that sort of frightened her. That someone she didn’t know beyond a passing glance knew all of these things? What she liked, what she would appreciate, down the things that few people knew about her like her fondness for sapphires and her (not) obsession with Doomed? It was scary, and if it weren’t for the fact that Sam knew very well that if anyone found out about Danny’s secret, the whole world would know, she’d be more scared.

There were suspects. She knew this logically. Whoever it was _had_ to know her, or at least associate with her to a degree. This meant it was most likely someone she went to school with. Sam could accept that conclusion easily, since she rarely spent time outside of school doing anything that didn’t involve her best friends. So her first real clue was that they were a student of Casper High. She supposed she could get technical and add in anyone she’d attended school with since her freshman year, but Sam thought that taking it that far would be a step in the wrong direction. This person knew her well enough that they had to see her on a daily basis.

Her second consideration was the financial aspect of it. Any one gift by itself would feel extravagant for most of the Casper students, but saving wasn’t an impossible task. Even then, though, when she added everything up to a solid numerical estimate, it seemed a little out there for her average classmate. The flowers, the edible flowers (which still made her smile), the jewelry. Sam didn’t even bother with the adoption or donation gifts; those weren’t necessarily expensive all on their own and, in all honesty, didn’t disturb her much.

The tickets, and the game, did.

And that was her third problem. Not only did this person know her and was able to afford these gifts, but they knew _people_ , because that’s what it would take to get advanced items like these. Sam would know; she’d done it herself. Shadow stirred under her gentle petting, but when he didn’t wake Sam turned her mind back to the mystery.

Sam herself had connections and money and a name that people outside of the average Amity Park citizen respected. Her family history wasn’t all deli toothpicks like she’d led Danny and Tucker to believe. Nothing bad, thank god, or even embarrassing. Wall Street was her family’s friend, and there were many Manson’s along the eastern seaboard that played stocks very well for the family fortune, letting them invest where interest found itself. Sam’s interests tended to be more controversial than the rest of her family’s, but that certainly didn’t mean that she didn’t know how to play the game. In fact, Sam had already taken a portion of her inheritance and invested it into a small technology company that was beginning to move up in the world.

But she had these things to trade on, not her admirer. It was a mystery wrapped in an enigma and tied with a conundrum. And it pissed her off.

“At least tomorrow is the twelfth day,” she murmured as she finally dragged herself out of bed, her feet digging in to the fuzzy slippers at her bedside as she tugged on her robe. She clucked her tongue at the sleeping kitten. “Come on, Shadow,” she told him as his eyes peeled open to show bright green and his head swiveled towards her. “Let’s go get breakfast.”

She was in the middle of hunting her own, Shadow happily pushing his nose into the soft food she’d given him, when the doorbell rang. She scowled as she recalled what Danny and Tucker (alright, mostly Tucker) had done to her last Saturday, but she headed to answer it. The water gun hidden behind her back as she opened the door was just… protection. The fib did little to assuage her conscience, so Sam ignored it.

“Good morning, Miss Manson.”

She contemplated shooting him with the water gun, but given the fact that her personal delivery stalker was already coated in snow, the white flakes dusting out of the sky even trying to work their way into her house, Sam thought she could tolerate being nice. “It’s Sam. Really, by now we should be on a first name basis.”

He chuckled. “Not enjoying your holiday?” The package was held out and Sam took it with a tired smile.

“Let’s just say I’m not a big fan of mysteries,” she told him. She glanced up at the sky. “Well, merry Christmas.”

The door was nearly closed when she heard his reply, but by the time she had the door open again he was already to his truck and working on starting it. It was hardly dignified to chase after him in her purple robe and fuzzy slippers. Then again, Sam knew that was only an excuse to avoid the cold that was already leaching the heat from the house and her body.

_I’ll see you tomorrow, Sam._

She scowled. At least someone was enjoying this.

She settled herself on the couch, the scraping sound of Shadows dish on the kitchen floor a faint amusement as she used a fingernail to slice through the packing tape. This gift wasn’t wrapped, the blanket falling out on her lap in a warm, soft mass. It was softer than anything she had right now, and a dark, dark black with a purple checkerboard pattern along the edges that made her smile. It was thick and heavy and _warm_.

She spread it out to drape across her as she inspected it, unfolding the end still in the box as she went. Folded within that section was yet another card, this time holding a snapshot of the wind section of an orchestra. Even without counting Sam knew that there were eleven of them playing their flutes and oboes and whatever else the instruments were called. She counted them anyway, and ran her fingers across the card as she settled back, ensconced in the blanket.

“Right. I’ll find out who you are tomorrow. You’d better hope I don’t kick your ass.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Sunday, December 24 th (One day until Christmas)**

 

“Alright. What if it’s Vlad?”

Sam and Danny both stared at Tucker like he’d lost his mind.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Sam demanded as she threw the book she was reading at Tucker. He fell back when it hit him in the chest, the weight making him grunt when he landed. “Oh, god,” she gagged. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

 Danny soothed her with a hand on her back as she settled her face between her knees. “Impressive,” he acknowledged as he leaned over and picked up the book before the snow ruined it. “The collected works of Poe. Nice.”

Sam bit down the urge to snatch the book from Danny’s hands and throw it at him. “How can you be so calm about this?” she demanded, but the near hysteria in her voice belied the suspicious part of her mind that wondered if Danny really could be her admirer.

“Because I already thought about that days ago,” Danny said dismissively. “You’ve been preoccupied with the mystery,” he said to her, and then, “And you’ve been obsessed with the idea of Star and Sam,” he told Tucker with a shake of his head.

“It’s a good idea!” Tucker protested before yelping in fear and ducking as Sam reached for the book in Danny’s hand.

“Vlad isn’t doing it. I asked him, and this is the kind of thing he’d want to lord over me anyway.” Danny grimaced at the thought, and Sam had to repress the shudder. “He’d want to gloat over how he’s going to steal Sam away from me, and then come after Mom. He’s mental.”

“You don’t think he’d lie, do you?” she ventured to ask, trying not to lean into the hand that was still absentmindedly rubbing her back.

Danny shook his head, and Sam sighed. “Alright. I trust your judgment where Vlad is concerned.”

“Sure you do,” he drawled sarcastically, but his blue eyes were twinkling merrily when she looked up at him. “Honestly, Sam. Why don’t you just sit back and enjoy the attention?”

She grumbled a reply and sighed when he leaned forward, a mischievous smile on his face. “Come on, Sam, I can’t hear you.”

“I want to know who it is,” she said a little louder, scowling.

“Control freak,” Tucker muttered as she regained his seat on the bench, and she didn’t bother glaring at him. It was true, to an extent. She wanted to know who it was. But with every day that had passed she wanted more and more for it to be someone specific, and she just couldn’t reconcile the deeds with Danny.

She sighed and sat back. “I think I’m going to go home. I need to spend some time with the parentals before I head to your house tonight.”

“Are they mad because you’re partying with us? Or is it the Christmas thing?” Tucker asked. She shrugged, not really sure herself. “They got you for eight nights, they should chill and let us have you for one.”

His sudden protective and possessive friend act made Sam smile. “It’s alright, I think they’re just kind of annoyed that I’ve been hiding in my room as much as I could. And they’re annoyed about Shadow.”

“But your grandma likes him, right?” Danny asked. “They’re not going to make you get rid of him, are they?”

“No!” The words came out in a rush. “Oh, no. he’s here to stay, even if Grams hated him. She likes him, so it’s a moot point. But I love him. Even if he takes up the entire bed. Mom just doesn’t like cat fur around when her poofy friends come over.”

“Good,” he said, settling back against the bench, and as Sam stood she took the chance to peer at him.

He looked stressed, which she knew he was. He was a little paler than usual, and he looked like he wasn’t sleeping, but that wasn’t unusual. His fingers were clenching around the wooden back of the bench as she watched, stretching for a moment before tugging her jacket back down into place. The idea that he was relieved over her getting to keep Shadow was different, and the need to revise the possibility that it was Danny ate at her. It was just a surreal thought that it might actually be him.

“Seven, right?” she asked, and Danny nodded absently pulling his cell from his pants pockets and fiddling with it for a moment.

As she turned around, Danny already returning the phone to his pocket and rising behind her, she paused. “We’ll walk you home,” Danny said, tugging Tucker up by his jacket and rolling his eyes. Sam’s were glued to the truck rolling to a stop at the entrance to the park. Again.

“Well, fuck,” she murmured, her eyes drifting back to Danny who was paying no attention to her whatsoever as he tossed Tucker into the snow, dancing and writhing to get the snow in the back of his collar out.

She was already halfway to the entrance when she met her deliveryman, a smile on her face this time. “Another one?” she asked expectantly, her spirits lighter than they had been in days.

“Well, you’re looking chipper. Figure out your mystery?” he asked, and Sam tilted her head to the side.

“I’m going to plead the fifth on that,” she said as she accepted the small box without hesitation.

It was the twelfth day; she would know exactly who it was shortly. The coincidence that Danny had used his cell for something only a minute before the delivery truck appeared on the street surely couldn’t be ignored, and he was so conveniently _present_. It had to be him, Sam just couldn’t stand the thought that it wasn’t.

“Oh, hey, another one,” Tucker said around a face full of snow, and Sam tried not to grin smugly when Danny and Tucker shook themselves off and came over to crowd around her. “Come on, Sam, I’ll be your cheering section this time.”

She kicked his shin, gently, but hard enough that he noticed, before undoing one of the taped ends and sliding the vibrant purple paper from the box. Jewelry, she thought, from the shape of the box. She opened it, no thoughts to anything but appreciating Danny’s obvious creativity, and lifted out a necklace to match the rest of the apparent set. White gold, again, and a heart shaped sapphire pendant dangling from two small princess cut diamonds. It was gorgeous, and Sam didn’t even try to act casual or annoyed.

“You dropped the note,” Danny said, and Sam took the small envelope from him, trying not to shiver when his fingers brushed hers.

She opened it, slipped the single note card out, and nearly dropped it. There were twelve drums spaced around the edges as a border, and printed within in neat block letters read, _I give you my heart – will you keep it?_

Her mouth fell open, and she waited for him to say something, but it was Tucker who finally asked the question. “Well? Where is he? It’s the twelfth day. Last present. Shouldn’t he be here for some magically romantic reveal?”

Even Danny was looking around, and Sam’s heart stuttered in her chest. She slipped the card and the box in her jacket pocket, and looked at the pendant again. Danny was watching her now, and Sam took unsteady fingers to the clasp. Even if she wasn’t sure she could give hers in return, the least she could do was wear the pretty pendant. The moment she clasped it about her neck she looked up into Danny’s eyes. They were dark, unwontedly so, and his mouth was twisted to a frown.

She couldn’t help but think that, somehow, she’d made a mistake to wear it.


	13. Chapter 13

**Sunday, December 24 th (Christmas Eve)**

 

The warm cider was pleasant and festive as Sam avoided the bulk of the Fenton clan by hiding in the small den across from the family room. It was currently passing as a large closet for the bulk of the outerwear Danny’s relative needed for the snowy clime, and some of the jackets were still damp with it, but Sam didn’t really mind. She loved Danny, and she loved his family, but Jack’s side of the family all had that fudge gene that made her feel like a sapling in a forest of redwoods. (Thank god it seemed to have bypassed Danny.)

“Coward,” Tucker muttered as he ducked in himself, letting the door close nearly entirely behind him instead of completely as she had.

She stuck her tongue out at him and sipped at her cider. “You’re just jealous because I called the best hiding place first. Where’d you go?”

“Ops Center,” he replied with a grin, moving over the window for a little light. His PDA was out and being fiddled with before Sam could say anything else, and she shook her head. “You seen Danny?” Tucker asked without looking up.

Sam shrugged, shoving a few jackets over so she could pull up a patch up floor. “I saw him when we got here, and again when he showed me where to find things that weren’t meat.”

Tucker gave a faint grunt. “I wondered who’d put the salad in the microwave. Found it when I went to make some cocoa for Granny Fitz.” He looked up at Sam with a pained expression. “She pinched my cheek.”

Sam laughed. “I’m sure it’s fine, Tucker. At least you can’t see a mark.”

He choked. “I didn’t mean that cheek.”

“Oh.” Sam paused, her breath catching in a definite snerk before she started laughing. “Oh, god, Tucker. That’s funny. Danny’s grandmother violated you.”

“Why do you think I’m hiding?” She managed to hear the words amidst her laughter, but couldn’t help herself, knowing that every noise she made ran the risk that she’d be dragged out and into the fray against her will. Danny and Jazz would understand, and Maddie might let it slide. Once. Jack? Oh, the pain.

“Besides, you’re one to talk. What’re you hiding for?” Tucker demanded, annoyed enough that he was paying more attention to her than to his PDA.

Sam shrugged. “I like being unsquished, for one. And I wanted to think.” She aimed at nonchalance, but was sure it failed.

“Sam?” Tucker ventured tentatively.

Sam turned away so he couldn’t see her face, her plastic cup warm in her hands as she commanded her fingers to relax and not crumple the half full cup in her grip. “Do you think it’s Danny?” she asked, her voice steady and not betraying the anxiety she felt. She’d been so _sure_ that afternoon. It wasn’t midnight yet; there was still time.

“I don’t know. No. I don’t know how it could be him, Sam,” Tucker finally said. He laid a hand on her shoulder, and Sam sighed.

“I don’t care who it is,” Sam confessed. “I want it to be Danny, I just don’t see how it can be him, either.”

“It’ll be alright, Sam. It’s not like you have to marry the guy. Or girl.”

She turned, rolling her eyes as she reached out a hand to casually smack his shoulder. “You’re a pervert. I hate to say this, but you need to get laid. It’ll help clear you mind.” She paused, musing. “Or it’ll make you worse. Hmm. Well, castration is always an option.”

The last was said brightly, and Tucker cringed back even as Danny’s head popped down through the ceiling. “Found you guys!” he exclaimed triumphantly. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

He dropped through the ceiling and held out his gift bearing hands. “I come bearing tribute to my best friends.”

Sam laughed and Tucker held a hand out haughtily. “Hand it over, Fenton. It’s about time you bowed before me.”

Danny frowned and Sam laughed. “Quit being an ass, Tuck. I’ll go first.” It only took a few seconds to unearth her jacket and the gifts wrapped and tucked within. One she gave to Tucker, who grinned like a kid in a candy store, the other went to Danny, and Sam watched as they began tugging at paper. Well, Danny tugged, neatly and patiently. Tucker ripped through his like a shark through a marathon swim, which was a mental image Sam so did not need.

“Oh my god,” was all Tucker said. It became a mantra that didn’t end even when Sam poked him in the side. She had to physically tug the new PDA from his hands.

“God, Tucker. Be a little more obsessive?”

“I love you, Sam.” She only had the four words to prepare herself for the spine breaking hug he engulfed her in, her body squeezed so tightly that she had to smack him in order to be able to breathe.

“You’re welcome, Tucker,” she told him as she stepped back, pretending to duck behind Danny. He, at least, was less demonstrative, though she wouldn’t have minded a hug like that from him.

“Wow, Sam. A copy of Tobin’s Annotated. That’s awesome.”

She grinned. “Supposedly it’s the definitive guide to ghosts. I figured we might as well see what we were rewriting.” The teasing words and tone made him laugh with her as he handed Tucker a slim box (she could tell Danny wrapped it, the ends kind of splinched together and the tape layered to cover his missed attempts) and her an envelope.

Sam’s stomach gave a sick little backflip as she opened it to the sound of Tucker gasping again at the upgrade she and Danny had colluded on. She’s done this very same thing so many times in the last week and a half; now she was doing it again from the boy—man—that she desperately wanted to be her secret admirer. The card was simple and Goth, something she’d seen in Skulk and Lurk, and the gift card inside was almost expected. She scanned the trite message to his hand written happy holidays and smiled against the urge to frown. She knew his handwriting, she hadn’t expected it to match what was on her drum note. But she’d hoped.

“Thanks, Danny. This is great.”

Tucker gave them both CD’s, and she wondered if he’d gotten the idea from her mystery man, since the CD’s were homemade and burned. Then he smiled and told them that the disks were the next step up from regular CD’s and that he’d managed to squeeze half a dozen CD’s that they’d each wanted on them. There were hugs all around until Tucker insisted he had to go and fuel his all nighter with his new toy by helping the Fenton clan finish off the ham. (And the turkey, and the stuffing, and the brisket that Maddie’s sister had brought.)

“You don’t mind it?” Danny asked as Sam continued to hide out in the little room.

She shook her head, confused. “Why would I mind it?”

“It’s kind of lame,” Danny admitted. “A gift card when you got all these… well, cool things from whoever the guy is.”

It made her heart hurt, because the fact that Danny was so uncertain wasn’t right. He was her best friend; he could have gotten her nothing and she’d never change the way she looked at him. She told him so, hiding the real reason behind the hurt. If Danny was her secret admirer he’d never have asked her that.

By the time she got home, Sam finally gave up the faint hope she’d been clinging to.


	14. Chapter 14

**Monday, December 25 th (Christmas Day)**

 

“Sam.”

The singsong voice was an annoyance that Sam found she could easily ignore. Five blankets—including the very warm one from her still secret admirer—guaranteed the she was a warm and toasty as ever she could want. Shadow’s hot purring form curled to her stomach helped even more, and Sam’s consciousness barely brushed waking as she settled herself even further on her side, knees drawn up so close that she could feel the kitten’s breath on her knees.

“Saaam.”

“G’way,” she managed, refusing to emerge from her safe haven from the cold.

She’d made a late night of it, sleep coming slow and sullenly as she sank into a vague melancholy. She’d inspected each gift one last time before putting them back. The jewelry was on her dresser, the pretty certificates and letters tucked into her desk drawer to keep them safe. The flowers of the blossoming persuasion were all hung in her shower to dry, and the edible variety had gone the way of her stomach days ago. Shadow was on her bed, as was the blanket, and the CD was lying on her desk with the game. Not a one had given her another clue during her inspection.

“Wake up, Sam.” The chuckle did more than annoy her, but Sam kept trying to doze though the timber was low and reminded her of something. She was having a great dream about a beach, and the sun, and no snow, and no secret admirer to wreck Christmas…

“You really should wake up, Sam.”

The connection came in the space of one heartbeat to another, and Sam shot upright as the familiar voice broke into a full-on laugh. Her eyes were wide and she never noticed when Shadow flicked his little tail at her before hopping from the bed. After all, how could she possibly pay any attention to the kitten when Danny Phantom was lounging on the side of her bed? And she’d just woken up… Sam yelped as her hands went to smooth her hair, then she blinked rapidly, her eyes watering as he shifted from Phantom to Fenton as easy as breathing.

“Your twelve days of Christmas aren’t over yet,” he informed her, his voice distinctly amused.

Her hands fell, her blanket pulled tighter to her chest, and Sam’s mouth fell open. “But today makes thirteen.”

He shifted a little closer, smiling, strangely hesitant but eager to be near her. “I never was too good at math, Sam,” he told her, his hand absently twirling something shiny through his fingers. It took an effort of will to tear her eyes away from his, for once the excuse she had to look at those bright blue eyes wasn’t about to be given up.

Then he stopped, his hand out and the twinkling thing sliding across his fingers came to a stop in his palm. A ring, she saw, and it matched the rest. Pale white gold that glittered in the morning sun, and a sapphire solitaire flanked on either side by two diamonds graduating down the band. “You?” she asked breathlessly, the shock so thick that she needed to hear him say it, to confirm it though the ring was proof enough.

He nodded, and she swallowed thickly, her eyes beginning to burn as he leaned toward her. His hands were hot on her wrist, one sliding down her hand, the cool metal of the ring against her skin as he cheek pressed against hers. Sam closed her eyes, struggling to breathe calmly, to breathe at all. It was him, he was here, he was so close. The ring went easily on her finger, and there was no mistake as she realized he’d chosen the third finger of her left hand deliberately. It was almost like he wanted to stake a claim on her.

It made her want to cry.

She shivered at the warmth of his breath across his ear as he whispered into it to her. “Merry Christmas, Sam.”

She could have cried easily as he pulled back, but her eyes darted to the ring on her finger and Sam’s breath hitched again as she brought her hand up to inspect it. It looked… _right_. She had to close her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them Sam’s eyes pierced into his like steel. Danny was smiling at her, but it was an odd one that almost hurt to look at.

“You played me,” she said softly, watching the fear and hope and regret play across his face one after the other.

He nodded, and the sudden fear in his eyes, though hidden away from his face, made her feel sick. “I did. I’m sorry, Sam, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

She looked back down at her finger and the ring decorating it. “Not just a game?” It was almost a desperate plea, Sam was sure he heard every nuance of her thoughts in those four words, but she didn’t care anymore.

“Oh, no, Sam. Not just a game.” He reached out to slip one hand through her short hair, cradling her cheek when she turned her face into his palm. “Sam, you’re crying.” The soft disbelief in his voice made her nearly choke on the sudden tears.

“I wanted it to be you,” she admitted shakily. “So badly.”

“Oh, Sam.” Danny sounded so sorry that she almost smiled, but he leaned close to her and she found she that she couldn’t move. Hell, breathing was becoming a problem again, not that Sam minded when he was so near.

Danny whispered to her then, close enough that she could almost taste his lips, “I gave you my heart a long time ago, Sam Manson. Will you keep it?”

She didn’t even bother saying yes, just leaned forward as her arms wrapped around his neck to kiss him. Another day she’d realize that their first real kiss came when she was freshly awake complete with bed head and morning breath, but for now it was just enough that she was kissing him and that Danny was (quite eagerly) kissing her back.


	15. Chapter 15

**Tuesday, December 26 th (One day after Christmas)**

 

“So it was you?” Tucker gaped at Danny from across the table.

Sam chuckled as Danny shrugged, ducking his face into his hands. It wasn’t enough that they’d walked into the Nasty Burger with her firmly under his arm, or that he refused to let her anywhere without him. Danny had stood in line, carried her tray, and made sure to plant a good smoldering kiss on her before she say down across from Tucker. And now Tucker had practically screeched the answer to the mystery with half of the senior class in residence (the rest of the consumers a variety of lower classmen).

“God, Tucker,” Sam moaned halfheartedly. “You realize we’re going to be stalked till school starts now, right?”

“It was you?” She rolled her eyes at his repeated question. Then Tucker was shaking his finger at Danny, his burger ignored with only a single bite missing. “Dude! I never pegged you! How the hell did you pull that off?”

Danny scowled as Sam looked at him. “Is it question and answer time now?” she asked. “Cause I’m kind of wondering how you pulled it off, too.”

The scowl deepened. “How do you think I’d have reacted if it had really been someone else?” Sam didn’t answer and his eyes flashed brilliant green for a moment.

“Jealousy rears its ugly green head!” Tucker chortled. “But you got her, so no need. Still, you could have _told_ me!”

It was Danny’s turn to snort, his fingers flicking at Tucker dismissively. “Tucker? No offense, but you suck at keeping secrets.”

Sam laughed as Danny’s arm went around her again, and she leaned into it. “Still,” she said, her head on his shoulder. “How did you manage it all? Cause that was really what made me think it wasn’t you.”

“Oh. Remember when Mom and Dad made me start working for them sometimes?” Sam nodded and his blue eyes twinkled. “Well, I neglected to mention that they paid me.”

“And the game?” demanded Tucker. Sam bit back a laugh because she knew Tucker was only angling to get his hands on a copy as soon as possible.

“Pen pal in Japan. It’s already been released over there.”

Sam arched her brow. “You have a pen pal?”

Danny coughed, looking away. “Well, sort of.”

“He’s a ghost, isn’t he?”

“Yeah.”

Sam bit back a laugh. “Alright, so the tickets. How did you pull that one off?”

Danny chuckled self-consciously, his free hand rubbing the back of his neck. “Well, Danny Phantom might have sort of promised to give an exclusive interview to a radio station with advance tickets just before the concert in exchange for four.” He coughed again, his face and neck flushing red.

“You did all of that for _me_?” Sam asked, again feeling the thrill of knowing that he really had.

In a single moment Tucker disappeared from her world as Danny leaned close to press a gentle kiss to her lips. “You know I love you, Sam. I’d do anything for you.”

Gagging noises from across the table had Sam burying her face in Danny’s shirt in embarrassment. It would take time to get used to him touching her and kissing her in front of people, and a little at all. Of course, with Tucker to help them over their fear of PDA’s (and how had she never noticed the disturbing pun there?) they’d be able to grope each other in class by the time school started again.

“Ow, Tuck, don’t hit me! I’ve got a bruise from where _she_ hit me,” Danny admitted with a sheepish chuckle as he rubbed his shoulder and Sam reached for her tray. “I’ll be doing penance for years.”

Sam sniffed superiorly as she chewed on a fry. “After all of the drama you put me through? God, you’re so lucky I love you.”

The fry was gone in a heartbeat as his lips covered hers, Tucker’s mocking kissy sounds faint in the background. “Yes, I am.”


End file.
